EDUCATION AND CULTURE COMMITTEE
Tuesday 21 April 2015
Session 4
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Tuesday 21 April 2015
CONTENTS
Col.
DECISION ON TAKING BUSINESS IN PRIVATE ....................................................................................................... 1
EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT ............................................................................................................................... 2
EDUCATION AND CULTURE COMMITTEE
th
9 Meeting 2015, Session 4
CONVENER
*Stewart Maxwell (West Scotland) (SNP)
DEPUTY CONVENER
*Siobhan McMahon (Central Scotland) (Lab)
COMMITTEE MEMBERS
*George Adam (Paisley) (SNP)
*Colin Beattie (Midlothian North and Musselburgh) (SNP)
Chic Brodie (South Scotland) (SNP)
*Mark Griffin (Central Scotland) (Lab)
*Gordon MacDonald (Edinburgh Pentlands) (SNP)
Liam McArthur (Orkney Islands) (LD)
*Mary Scanlon (Highlands and Islands) (Con)
*attended
THE FOLLOWING ALSO PARTICIPATED:
Grahame Barn (Civil Engineering Contractors Association Scotland)
James Dornan (Glasgow Cathcart) (SNP) (Committee Substitute)
Phil Ford (Construction Industry Training Board Scotland)
Barry McCulloch (Federation of Small Businesses)
Paul Mitchell (Scottish Building Federation)
CLERK TO THE COMMITTEE
Terry Shevlin
LOCATION
The Sir Alexander Fleming Room (CR3)
1
21 APRIL 2015
Scottish Parliament
Education and Culture
Committee
Tuesday 21 April 2015
[The Convener opened the meeting at 09:34]
Decision on Taking Business in
Private
The Convener (Stewart Maxwell): Good
morning. I welcome everybody to the ninth
meeting in 2015 of the Education and Culture
Committee.
We have apologies from Liam McArthur and
Chic Brodie. I welcome James Dornan, who is
here as a substitute for Chic Brodie.
Our first item is to consider whether to take item
3 in private. Do members agree to do so?
Members indicated agreement.
The Convener: I should have said, as I always
do, that we should ensure that electronic devices,
including phones, are switched off so that they do
not interfere with the sound system.
2
Educational Attainment
09:34
The Convener: Our next item is to take
evidence on the role of employers as part of our
inquiry into attainment. I welcome to the
committee Grahame Barn from the Civil
Engineering Contractors Association Scotland;
Phil Ford from the Construction Industry Training
Board Scotland; Barry McCulloch from the
Federation of Small Businesses; and Paul Mitchell
from the Scottish Building Federation. Thank you
very much for your written submissions, which
were very interesting.
We will move straight to questions.
Mary Scanlon (Highlands and Islands) (Con):
I will open with a question on what skills
employers are looking for when they recruit young
people straight from school or college. I am
thinking about the importance of soft skills, as they
are often known, and of formal qualifications.
Could you give us a brief introduction on that?
Phil Ford (Construction Industry Training
Board Scotland): Primarily, employers are
looking for young people who have a good work
ethic: those who are able to turn up on time,
communicate effectively, take the initiative and
work as part of a team.
There has been an issue about some of the
technical skills that young people have before they
go on to their apprenticeship, but the skills for
work programme and work experience provide
opportunities to better prepare young people for a
career in the construction industry. More
opportunities will come out of the “Commission for
Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce Interim
Report”—the Wood commission report.
Mary Scanlon: If someone aged 16 comes
along to you and interviews very well, how can you
tell whether that person has a good work ethic and
can work in a team? Can they bring anything to
the interview by way of experience or
qualifications that would help?
Phil Ford: We can look at what they have done
in school. Have they done a skills for work course
or have they had work experience in the
construction industry? Do they have an interest in
the industry? Have they done their research to find
out a little bit about the job that they are applying
for?
We encourage young people to look for work
experience opportunities rather than just sign up
for a modern apprenticeship in construction
straight away. They should find out what it is really
like to work in the sector before making a
commitment. That also reduces the risk for the
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21 APRIL 2015
4
employer. The last thing that we want is for a
young person to start work and find that it is not
the career for them. It is better that they test it out
beforehand.
on qualifications, whereas business is something
that people do after they go out the door and leave
school? What needs to be done to bring them
together?
Paul Mitchell (Scottish Building Federation):
I often hear simple, basic things from employers.
Does the candidate look the interviewer in the eye
when coming in to see them and shaking their
hand? Are they tenacious? The construction
industry is one of the few remaining industries in
which people can come and chap the door to see
whether there is an apprenticeship, leave their CV
and come back the next week to try again.
I will finish by asking whether there are any
specific skills gaps that you think need to be
addressed. Again, that could involve working with
schools, because we need to improve work with
schools to prepare youngsters for the workplace.
Are there specific skills gaps in the context of
breaking down barriers between business and
schools?
Employers are really looking for soft skills. I am
not sure to what extent they look for academic
qualifications when they judge a candidate’s
suitability for an apprenticeship.
Mary Scanlon: Something in the FSB’s written
submission was a wee bit of a criticism of
teachers. Paragraph 6 says:
“Undeniably, developing the skills and knowledge of
teachers in areas they are likely to have little experience in
(employability/skills and enterprise ... ) is a challenge ...
Whether the funding provided by the Scottish Government
will allow teachers time out of the classroom to ... create
closer links with business remains to be seen.”
You seem to be a bit sceptical about the role of
teachers in preparing young people for
employment. Could you expand on that point?
Could schools do more in preparation?
Barry McCulloch (Federation of Small
Businesses): Our general point is that the Wood
commission report presents a challenge for the
education system and for businesses. It is fair to
say that, until now, schools and colleges have not
been adequately preparing young people for the
world of work. That is the crux of the Wood
commission report: how do we better prepare
young people for that environment?
The particular point in that paragraph is that
teachers have traditionally been asked to focus on
qualifications—whether highers or, now, nationals.
In line with the Wood commission report and the
Government’s response to it, teachers are now
being asked to build in different competencies,
such as soft skills or attitude and behaviours. That
in itself is a challenge: it is about how we get
teachers to expose themselves to that different
world and how we get businesses involved at the
same time. At the moment, we do not know how to
do that. It is a massive cultural change. However,
we are fairly confident that, with the near £30
million that the Government has allocated to that
agenda, there will be enough time for teachers in
particular to reflect on that.
Mary Scanlon: Are barriers being broken
down? Is the pattern of silo working being broken
down between schools, which, as you say, focus
Grahame
Barn
(Civil
Engineering
Contractors Association Scotland): Before I
answer, I should declare an interest: my wife is a
teacher, so I understand some of the issues that
teachers have. From an employer’s perspective, it
can be difficult to engage with schools, because
employers do not know quite how to go about it
and they are not certain whether they are
encouraged to go into schools and whether, if they
are, they have to go through certain checks before
they can speak to young people. We need to
better understand how employers can engage with
schools. I think that employers wish to engage
with schools and that teachers and the leaders of
schools see that there is a role for their schools in
working with local employers, but it is a question of
how we can get that together. A few barriers need
to be overcome.
Mary Scanlon: Could that happen at careers
fairs?
Grahame Barn: Yes, that is one element, but
we also need to get into schools more regularly,
because at a careers fair we would be competing
with tourism and all the other sectors, and we
would get only 10 or 15 minutes every year to
make a pitch. We need a bit more than that to be
able to show the breadth of careers in
construction. Sometimes, careers people believe
that construction is just for a certain type of
student or pupil, but we offer a breadth of careers
for those who have degrees at one level down to
general operatives at another. It is a huge industry
with huge potential and huge requirements for
young people, and 10 minutes once a year does
not give us the opportunity to make our case.
Mary Scanlon: Maybe you could bring in more
women at the same time.
Grahame Barn: Absolutely.
Phil Ford: I attended a developing Scotland’s
young workforce event at the Carnegie UK Trust,
which was also attended by a number of
headteachers, and I did not sense any lack of
willingness to engage with employers; there was
certainly a lot of interest around the table. There is
a greater understanding among teachers of
academic routes into the industry and it is
5
21 APRIL 2015
incumbent on organisations such as CITB, through
our network of field-based careers advisers and by
working closely with Skills Development Scotland
and other careers advisers, to highlight the scale
of the available opportunities in construction to
young people and to let them know where a career
in construction could take them. We have a
construction ambassador programme that trains
up people from the industry to go into primary and
secondary schools to talk to kids about their
experiences of working in the industry. That has
been a powerful tool for helping teachers, careers
advisers and young people to understand what a
career in construction is like and where it can take
them.
The Convener: Is there still a misunderstanding
between industry and the education sector, in that
teachers sometimes do not understand the
difference between construction, engineering and
all the different elements of the sector?
Phil Ford: Yes, I think that that is an issue. We
need to work closely with the education system to
outline the scale of opportunities and the career
pathways across different sectors, because people
can start off in one area and move into others. We
need to make that much clearer.
Construction is changing. We have off-site
manufacture, building information modelling is
coming through and we have new technologies, so
we need to give teachers and the education sector
information about the scale of the opportunities
that they can promote to young people.
The Convener: Are they doing it?
Phil Ford: As I said, we have not found a lack
of willingness to engage, although levels of
awareness are variable. In the schools that we
work with, there is a strong level of interest in
construction and the Wood commission provides
an opportunity and framework for schools to
engage more in that area.
Gordon MacDonald (Edinburgh Pentlands)
(SNP): I want to ask about employers’
responsibility to recruit young people. The
construction industry performs fairly well when it
comes to apprenticeships, with about 7 per cent of
total employment and 10 per cent of construction
apprentices, but that is still only 1,300 people out
of the 178,000 people who are employed in your
sector. Bear in mind that, on leaving school, most
young people will go into retail, hospitality or
tourism. What proportion of the 178,000 people
whom you employ actually are young people and
is there a particular reason why you are not
recruiting young people?
6
09:45
Phil Ford: The number of construction
apprenticeships starting is around 2,500, which is
10 per cent of the total that are coming through.
There is a very strong employer commitment to
taking on young people. I will give you one
statistic: during the recession, more than 2,000
young people lost their jobs. In the same period,
1,800 were re-placed with employers. Employers
made a commitment throughout the recession, in
very difficult trading conditions, to take on young
people and a lot of those employers were
microbusinesses.
The construction industry has a strong
commitment to taking on apprentices and to
training. Every year, £15 million is levied from the
construction industry and £18 million is returned in
the form of training grants. Yes, more could be
done, but employers are committed to taking on
young people—we saw that recently, when
Muirfield Contracts went into administration.
Almost all its apprentices have now been placed
with other employers.
Gordon MacDonald: But what is the age profile
of the construction industry, in general terms?
Phil Ford: We have an ageing workforce.
Gordon MacDonald: That is my point.
Phil Ford: We have a bigger issue with people
leaving the industry. On top of the apprentice
statistics, our labour market intelligence tells us
that we need 5,700 experienced workers to come
back into the industry to replace those who left
during the recession, taking into account inflows
and outflows. I accept that that is a challenge for
us.
Paul Mitchell: It is often quoted that 30 per cent
of the construction workforce is aged 50 years or
over. That gives you an idea of the type of
replacement demand that we will encounter in the
coming years. Whether that 30 per cent will retire
remains to be seen; I hope that they will work on.
I will give you the context around apprentice
recruitment. Prior to the recession, the Scottish
Building Apprenticeship and Training Council
registered 2,700 apprentices in construction each
year. That did not include plumbers and
electricians. By 2012, that number had dropped to
just below 1,300, so it dropped by more than half
in a five-year period.
During the past couple of years we have started
to turn that around and we are facing the right
direction again. Last year—2014—we registered
1,550 apprentices, so we are growing again and
we would like to grow towards that 2,700 target
and beyond.
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21 APRIL 2015
The construction industry in Scotland has
always fared better on per capita recruitment than
our counterparts south of the border. There
remains a strong culture of recruiting apprentices
in the Scottish construction industry. There is room
for improvement, but now that we are coming out
of recession the figures are beginning to grow
again.
Grahame Barn: I will give an example from the
civil engineering sector. Traditionally a person
requires a degree to be a civil engineer. By the
time they have their degree they could be 24 and
may still not be certain whether it is the industry for
them.
We have realised that we must get to younger
people quicker, so we are introducing a foundation
apprenticeship. We are going into schools at
secondary 4 and 5 level to give pupils a taste of
civil engineering and show them the career that
they can have. We are trying to offer them a
career pathway on which they are employed
throughout,
going
from
their
foundation
apprenticeship to their modern apprenticeship
technician role. They will be fully employed from
when they leave school aged 17 or 18.
We offer a pathway comprising two years
studying for a higher national diploma and two
years studying for a civil engineering degree. We
are trying to demonstrate to young people that
they can still get a degree, that they will be
employed for the whole period and that they can
jump off at any point on their career path. We can
demonstrate that, if they go to university, they will
get their degree without having debt at the end of
it, as they will be employed over the period.
More and more employers realise that we have
to grow our own. We are competing with all those
other industries and the number of young people
coming through is very low, historically. We realise
that we must be better at showing all young
people—not just males—that there is a lifelong
career in construction; it is not a hire and fire
industry.
Gordon MacDonald: You say that you have to
grow your own. Do you support the skills for work
initiative that is taking place in schools at the
moment?
Grahame Barn: Yes. Absolutely.
The Convener: Mary Scanlon has a quick
supplementary question.
Mary Scanlon: My son is a civil engineer, so I
know what it takes to get through that pathway.
Are you saying that someone would do a
foundation
apprenticeship
or
a
modern
apprenticeship at 17 and then go on to do an HND
at college, by distance learning or whatever?
8
I am an ex-lecturer. Do you see an HND as
being equivalent to a degree, or did you say that,
after the two years of the HND, someone would
then have to do a two-year degree? Is there clear
articulation from the HND into a degree course,
with the final two years at university being full
time?
Grahame Barn: Yes. The person would be
employed during that period, but there would be
day release.
Mary Scanlon: Do you mean day release to
university to do a degree?
Grahame Barn: Yes, during that two-year
period.
Mary Scanlon: For the final two years—for
junior and senior honours.
Grahame Barn: Yes. We are working with—
Mary Scanlon: Can that be done by day
release?
Grahame Barn: Colleges are doing that now.
Inverness College is doing that with the University
of Strathclyde for the civil engineering degree.
Mary Scanlon: The people involved are
engineers who are employed but who are doing
one day of day release and are coming out with an
honours degree in civil engineering.
Grahame Barn: Yes.
Mary Scanlon: They are attending college one
day a week.
Grahame Barn: I am not sure that it is one day
a week—I would have to get back to you on that—
but that is how it is working. During that two-year
period, they are employed—they are working for
an employer—and getting block release to go to
university to complete their course.
Mary Scanlon: They are getting block release.
Grahame Barn: Yes.
Mary Scanlon: I would be interested in seeing
more information on the articulation, convener.
Grahame Barn: I will get that to you.
The Convener: Can you send us that?
Grahame Barn: Yes.
Gordon MacDonald: My next question is for
the FSB. We gathered evidence that many small
and micro businesses find it difficult to employ an
apprentice because they lack the capacity to
provide the resources and training that are
needed. Will you expand on the difficulties?
Barry McCulloch: Sure. It is fair to say that
modern apprenticeships tend not to be the form of
training that smaller businesses, in contrast to the
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21 APRIL 2015
construction industry, prefer. Our statistics show
that about 8 per cent of our members recruit a
modern apprentice. That figure has been under 11
or 12 per cent for five to six years, and there is a
steady pattern of disengagement. When we ask
our members why that is the case, they tend to
say that the model is not flexible enough. They
say, for example, “I run a business that builds
camper vans in East Lothian, and having the
apprentices going to college on day release does
not add value when they come back.” That is one
issue.
The other two key issues are time and cost
pressures. Ninety-eight per cent of all businesses
in Scotland are small businesses, and 94 per cent
have 10 employees or fewer. Many do not have a
formal human resources set-up, so their approach
to recruitment and engagement tends to be quite
risk averse. When a business takes on a modern
apprentice, it makes a commitment and, in the
past, there has not been willingness to engage in
a formal programme of training. Our members
tend to prefer informal, work-based training that
they can dip into and out of and which is much
more bite sized, rather than the commitment that
they make for an apprenticeship.
However, it is difficult to generalise the situation
overall, as it depends on the sector, the size and
scale of the business and the geography.
Apprenticeships in rural areas have their own
challenges, including the distance to market and
the distance to educational institutions for day
release.
Gordon MacDonald: I have one difficulty with
the point that you just made about small
businesses not having HR departments. How
many hairdressing firms have HR departments?
There are 900 apprentices in hairdressing, yet
those firms are predominantly small businesses
with half a dozen employees. How do such small
businesses manage to take on apprentices
straight from school and train them when other
businesses of a similar size and scale do not?
Barry McCulloch: That harks back to the
previous point about complexity. In hairdressing,
modern apprenticeships are an established
training programme and part of the culture of the
business, whereas in other service sectors,
including retail, tourism and hospitality, they are
less established. That comes back to common
practice among the businesses in the sector, the
business owner’s expectations and their
relationship with the college or the public sector.
Gordon MacDonald: How do we ensure that
we have people with the right level of skills and
experience for small businesses to take on?
Whose responsibility is it to get people work ready
for small businesses?
10
Barry McCulloch: Fundamentally, that is the
business’s responsibility. It knows its business and
it makes the skills assessment. Is there a route for
the public sector to assist it in that assessment?
Absolutely. That is what Skills Development
Scotland is there to do. The modern
apprenticeship programme is applicable only to
certain businesses in certain sectors, so we need
to start talking about how other businesses can
access skills and training flexibly.
Gordon MacDonald: How much engagement
do you have with colleges and in particular
schools to encourage them to work with your
members?
Barry McCulloch: It is fair to say that the Wood
commission is a bit of a game changer. In the
past, businesses have been fairly passive. We are
getting to a point where businesses must be more
involved and are having to be partners in the
process. It is too early to say whether that cultural
change can be achieved, whether schools and
colleges are open to that change and whether
businesses are willing or able to engage.
We are only a few months into the Scottish
Government’s strategy, but we are optimistic. One
in four of our members want to engage. The issue
is how they engage. The engagement must be
tangible. When businesses have spoken to
schools and colleges or they have had that
outreach, the schools and colleges have been
specific about what they wanted from businesses
and how businesses could help. Rather than
asking businesses to come and engage in
schools, schools are asking them whether they
can provide classroom visits, careers advice,
entrepreneurship and mentoring. That is about
being specific about the type of engagement and
the time required.
George Adam (Paisley) (SNP): My question is
about the inequalities in attainment. The evidence
has shown us that schools and parents seem to
have a problem with the idea of vocational
education—everything seems to be weighted in
favour of academic education. We are constantly
told that people are not going into vocational
training. I have heard stories of young people
being encouraged to go down the academic route
when they could have quite easily gone down the
engineering apprenticeship route.
We have talked about this a wee bit today, but
how do we manage to change that culture in
schools? How do we ensure parity between
academic and vocational training, similar to that in
the European education models, where going
down the vocational route is not looked down on?
Phil Ford: Some of that is about raising the
scale of the opportunities that are available among
young people and teachers. That is a bit of a
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21 APRIL 2015
challenge. Some schools measure success by the
number of pupils who go to university. We need to
challenge that and promote vocational careers as
being equally valid.
Because of the Wood commission, there is an
opportunity through the new foundation modern
apprenticeships and the senior phase at school,
when young people get an opportunity to try
different careers. They will not have to get through
to the end of their school time before deciding
what apprenticeship they want to go on to; rather,
they will have had a chance to sample something
through work experience, an FMA or some other
initiative, which enables them to decide what they
want to do. However, there is quite a bit of work to
be done in the area; it is still a challenge.
George Adam: Another issue that comes up is
that attainment is down to the leadership in
schools—whether the head teacher and everyone
else embrace it.
12
into a school, because I am not someone they will
look to. We must get the young people in the
industry to go back to show pupils in schools what
they have achieved across the breadth of
qualifications and careers that we provide.
We must inspire young people to choose to look
at what construction can offer them, and we must
ensure that schools are in a position to work with
employers to offer young people tasters or work
experience somewhere along the line so that they
will be able to say whether a career in construction
is for them instead of not being sure what they
want to do in third and fourth year and making a
career decision that might not be the right one
when they leave school. We need to get in a bit
earlier and give them a taster of what is available
to them.
George Adam: I liked what Grahame Barn said
about giving young people the whole career path.
That is the vision thing.
We went to Wester Hailes education centre,
which seems to have achieved not a bad balance
that involves working with the local college and
working on the vocational side. That adds a bit of
flexibility, which a lot of other schools are looking
at.
You will be aware that the University of the West
of Scotland in my constituency in Paisley was
traditionally a technical college. It had to tell the
parents and the kids how much could be earned in
the engineering industry. It was only then that
everyone started to work out where the future lay.
Where is the employer’s relevance in reducing
the attainment gap? A perfect example is my
father. In the 1960s, he came out of secondary
school after failing his 11-plus. He got an
apprenticeship in a local business and ended up
employing more than 200 people by his own wee
self. How do we enable that to happen these
days? When pupils come out of school, the
opportunities are not there for them. How do we
ensure that vocational education is part of the
curriculum?
I will ask about the entrepreneurial side—I am
talking about small businesses. In Scotland, it was
not traditional for people—regardless of their
background—to have an entrepreneurial spirit or
to want to be self-employed. That has not been
seen as an option. People have always tried just
to get a job. How do we instil an entrepreneurial
spirit in young people, regardless of their
socioeconomic background?
10:00
Phil Ford: Employers can work towards the
recently introduced investors in young people
accolade. A number of construction companies
already have that award. An example is GMG
Contractors in the east end of Glasgow, which is
run by Gerry McGinn. He has helped many young
people who had a hard start in life to get an
apprenticeship with his company, and many of
them have stayed—the company has a very low
churn rate—because he has invested the time in
supporting them and bringing them through. There
are many similar examples across the construction
industry in Scotland.
Grahame Barn: As an industry, we need to
inspire young people to choose to look at the
construction industry and the breadth of careers
that are available to them in it. Phil Ford made a
point about the young ambassadors we have.
There is no point in an old bloke such as me going
Barry McCulloch: We can certainly do much
more, but it is worth reflecting on the fact that,
since 2008, one upside of the downturn has been
the massive explosion in self-employment, which
has grown by 30 per cent. Whether as a result of
distress or otherwise, people took the leap and
started their own business. Organisations such as
Young Enterprise Scotland and the Prince’s Trust
do good work, but the problem is that it is patchy
and relies heavily on the organisation’s
relationship with the school, the education provider
or the education authority.
George Adam: So we come back to leadership
in education.
Barry McCulloch: It is a question of leadership,
but it is also a case of recognising that building the
spirit of entrepreneurship in education has other
implications and positive consequences for young
people, whether by building confidence or by
engaging with young people in a different way.
The Wood commission was right to point out that
around 50 per cent of those who do not go down
the academic route are twice as likely to be
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21 APRIL 2015
unemployed. We need to engage with them
effectively and to ensure that they can make a
contribution and that they are prepared for life in
the jobs market, because it will be incredibly tough
for them.
Paul Mitchell: About a quarter of all the workers
who are engaged in the Scottish construction
sector are self-employed, so there is still a strong
element
of
self-employment
in
Scottish
construction. Whether that is real or phoney selfemployment, and whether that is a good or a bad
thing, it remains a feature of the Scottish
construction sector.
Another feature of Scottish construction is
candidates who started out on an apprenticeship
ending up being the owner of their own company.
Mr Adam asked where the entrepreneurial spirit is.
I can think of many people who started out on an
apprenticeship who have ended up running their
own company, whether it is a small local company
or a national company.
Bill Robertson of the Robertson group springs to
mind. He started on a joinery apprenticeship and
now employs hundreds of people in the
construction industry. That is one of the reasons
why we still retain a strong culture of
apprenticeship recruitment. That touches on the
point that was raised about why hairdressers still
recruit so many apprentices. Part of the answer is
that many of the hairdressers who now run
businesses
were
previously
apprentice
hairdressers. We still retain that element in
Scottish construction.
On the earlier point about the involvement of
employers in raising attainment, there are three
elements in that. First, there is careers advice,
information and guidance, which Grahame Barn
touched on. We have to get into schools as early
as possible to start the engagement process.
Careers advice has to be more modern and more
interactive. As Grahame Barn said, there is no
point in people such as us going in and doing a
PowerPoint presentation on construction. Instead,
we have to get the kids’ hands dirty and get them
involved in mock construction exercises and so
on.
Secondly, employers can offer better work
experience placements. When I was at school, we
got one week’s work experience in fourth year. I
am really not sure how meaningful or beneficial
that was. There must be a far more meaningful
way of doing that.
Thirdly, employers have to get involved in
shaping the vocational qualifications that are
offered at school level. We cannot just expect that
to happen by magic. Employers must get into
organisations such as the Scottish Qualifications
Authority and describe, explain and outline exactly
14
what they want for vocational education in
schools.
Mark Griffin (Central Scotland) (Lab): We
have touched on how attainment can be improved
more generally, but do members of the panel see
the attainment gap between the most affluent and
the most deprived communities as an issue? Is
that impacting on your businesses? Are you able
to access a big enough pool of candidates for the
posts that you advertise? Are there pockets of the
country where that is a bigger issue than it is in
others?
Phil Ford: There is quite a healthy supply of
applicants for each apprenticeship place—there
are about four applicants for each modern
apprenticeship position in construction, so there is
clearly a lot of interest out there. However, in parts
of the country such as Aberdeen and
Aberdeenshire, where we are competing with the
oil and gas industry, it can be a little bit more
challenging to get young people in. We do quite a
strong piece of work there with the schools to
promote careers in construction. We give pupils
information about the wages and the career
potential so that they will consider a career in
construction. The situation varies across the
country.
Grahame Barn: Until about 18 months or two
years ago, the main concern of the civil
engineering sector was workload—people were
saying, “Get us work—please get us work.” Now,
however, the main priority is skills and
development. People are asking where the people
are to do the work that they have now got.
Employers have woken up to the situation—
perhaps a little bit late—that we need young
people from all parts of society to get involved.
With regard to the attainment gap, I would say that
there is a job for everybody in the construction
industry.
The sector has realised that we need to get a
supply chain that starts in primary schools.
Therefore, CECA is funding a project called
bridges to schools. The Institution of Civil
Engineers has a bridge kit—it is not a silly wee
bridge; it is 7m long—that it takes to schools. For
two days, primary 6 and 7 kids work as a team to
overcome difficulties and assemble this huge
bridge that they can walk across. We are trying to
show kids in primary schools that this is what
construction is about.
The bridges to schools programme is great. We
are building a very big bridge not far from here
and, once the pupils have built their own bridge,
we take them to the education centre at South
Queensferry to be shown the real bridge being
built; we are saying to them, “You’ve built your
bridge—here’s another one that’s being built.” The
point is to get the children at an early stage,
15
21 APRIL 2015
encourage them and get them enthused about this
activity. We have a number of iconic buildings in
Scotland, and we have to get better at using them
and making it clear that the built environment is for
everyone and that we need to make our society
better through building. That is what we have to
sell to pupils.
We show pupils that they can make a lifelong
career—and, in fact, some decent money—in
construction. What is not that well understood is
that construction pays well. A lot of people seem
to view construction as a low-paying industry
when, in fact, it is not. We can show pupils that,
but the point is that employers can play a far
greater role in selling the industry than they have
in the past. If we do not do that, we will have big
problems.
Mark Griffin: You said that one of the issues for
the industry is continuing the flow of people to fill
these posts and, to me, the most fruitful areas
would seem to be the areas where unemployment
and therefore the availability of people are highest.
Are you focusing your bridges to schools
programme on areas of higher unemployment and
deprivation, or are you introducing it broadly
across all areas? We are talking about closing the
attainment gap rather than increasing educational
attainment and employment across the whole of
Scotland.
Grahame Barn: We have a grand plan,
although whether it will work is another thing. We
are running two pilots for our foundation civil
engineering
apprenticeships,
which
are
partnerships between secondary schools and
colleges. The first, which is in West Lothian,
involves West Lothian College and Carluke high
school as well as a number of West Lothian high
schools, and we are trying to take the bridges to
schools programme into the feeder primary
schools for, say, Carluke high school, because we
see a route from primary school into secondary
school and finally into the local college through the
vocational foundation apprenticeships. We are
trying to do the same at Inverness College and the
two secondary schools in that area.
16
going to be needed, and we can then work with
the DWP to find out whether it has people on its
books who can fill the immediate skills gaps. We
can also work with schools to promote careers in
areas where we know that those particular skills
are going to be required, and we can offer
sessions for the schools’ careers advisers to make
them aware of the opportunities that are available
in the construction industry and to bring the
employers to them. So far, that approach has
been fairly successful. As part of apprenticeship
week, we have asked every construction employer
to pledge to give young people a work experience
opportunity with a view to their moving on,
hopefully, to an MA or paid employment at the
end.
Barry McCulloch: There are three points that I
think are worth reflecting on. First, private sector
employment in Scotland is now at its highest level
since 1999, and there are now more than 2 million
jobs in the sector at a time when employment in
the public sector has gone down.
Secondly, there is a story to be told about the
role of small businesses in taking on those furthest
from the labour market. Depending on what UK
statistics you look at, somewhere between 75 and
90 per cent of those who are either inactive or
unemployed find employment in the kind of small
businesses that do not have the corporate social
responsibility
mechanisms
or
marketing
departments to tell people about that.
Thirdly, we need to address skill shortages
directly. The fact is that we have not yet matched
supply with demand—if we had done so, we would
have no unemployment. Part of the answer is
having more local and robust labour market
intelligence and finding out how those in schools
and colleges can match what they offer in their
curriculums with what the labour market can
absorb in the short or medium term. Until we get to
the point where the curriculum is being influenced
by and producing for the private sector, we will
always get these dislocations between the supply
of skills and the demand from industry.
That is what we are trying to do, but it is still
early days. The primary schools involved will have
pupils with attainment difficulties, and I hope that
we can show them that they, too, can have a role
to play.
10:15
The Convener: Grahame Barn has mentioned
the foundation apprenticeships twice in a relatively
positive way, but the Scottish Building Federation
said in its written submission:
Phil Ford: We work very closely with the
Department for Work and Pensions and, indeed,
have just signed a strategic agreement with it that
covers a number of areas. One of the things that
we are looking to do is share labour market
intelligence on a regional basis to ensure that we
know where the skill shortages are and that we
prioritise accordingly. We have a long-term, fiveyear forecast that lets us know where the skills are
“a significant level of concern remains regarding
proposals to create ‘foundation apprenticeships’ in craft
occupations.”
It went on to list practical issues, training issues
and progression issues. I do not want to put words
into Grahame Barn’s mouth, but he seemed to be
reasonably
positive
about
foundation
17
apprenticeships, whereas
evidence is very different.
21 APRIL 2015
the
SBF’s
written
Paul Mitchell: We stand by our written
evidence. There are a number of concerns in the
construction
industry
about
foundation
apprenticeships, which we can perhaps deal with
in more detail.
I have had some exposure to the programme
that Grahame Barn operates, and I think that it is
excellent. To date, it has been successful, but it is
aimed mainly at those seeking more academic
and perhaps white-collar-type occupations such as
technicians rather than at guys or operatives who
will end up on the tools.
In the written evidence, I listed some issues to
do with foundation apprenticeships that we are
concerned about. They are broadly shaped into
three categories.
There are practical issues around timetabling
and, principally, resources. Looking to get more
vocational training into schools is not necessarily a
new idea. The main reason why that has not
happened in the past is that it is resource
intensive. Low pupil-to-instructor ratios, materials
and a lot of space are needed, and people often
need transport to get to colleges. That is often an
expensive route to look at. There are academic
alternatives that are maybe not quite as
expensive. That is one of the main reasons why
vocational training has not really got off the ground
in schools to date.
I went on to look at training issues with
foundation apprenticeships. Candidates would not
have daily experience of being involved in the
construction industry. Currently, the opportunity to
go to college for a couple of weeks, go back to the
site, practise skills on site, go to college again and
practise on site again is embedded in the
apprenticeship
framework.
There
is
an
interrelationship between on-site and off-site
training.
There are also progression issues. Where does
the candidate go if they do not manage to get an
apprenticeship at the end of their school term?
Where do they go if they undertake a foundation
apprenticeship and start to work towards some of
their Scottish vocational qualification? Where is
their progression route after they have finished
school? We are not quite sure about that just yet.
Most important, we outlined a positive
alternative to foundation apprenticeships at the
end of the paper. Skills for work and the national
progression award in construction offer candidates
employability skills and a taster of a variety of
different occupations in the construction sector.
The opportunity for candidates to make more
informed career decisions is very beneficial at that
stage in their development.
18
The Convener: I am keen to explore that, but I
know that other members have questions that are
directly about apprenticeships, so we will come to
it later. However, it was very helpful of you to
outline that. Thank you very much.
Colin Beattie (Midlothian North and
Musselburgh) (SNP): I want to go back to
engagement between employers and employer
organisations, and schools. From looking at the
submissions, I see that there is a lot of aspirational
stuff, but I do not see too firm a design, plan or
way forward to develop those relationships. What
do you think are the current levels of engagement
between employers and employer organisations,
and schools? Is that engagement good or
variable?
Phil Ford: There are some examples of good
practice out there. I mentioned earlier the
construction ambassador programme, in which we
invite people from the construction industry for a
one-day course to enable them to go into primary
and secondary schools and talk about their
experiences of working in the industry. Generally
speaking, schools are very receptive to that. They
are happy to have people come in. There is quite
a strong link between schools, colleges and
employers.
Could the link be stronger? Yes, I am sure that it
could. I am sure that, in some areas, it could be
improved. However, there is a great deal of
willingness among employers to engage in the
apprenticeship system. Employers—particularly
those who have engaged in apprenticeships for a
number of years—can see the benefits of the
apprenticeship system and the benefits of
engaging with schools and colleges to get goodcalibre young people in as apprentices. Most of
the small businesses that take on apprentices will
keep the apprentice after they finish their training
because they want to mould them into the shape
of their particular company.
Colin Beattie: What measures to increase
engagement have been taken by employers and
by employer organisations? Each will have a
slightly different approach.
Grahame Barn: As an employer organisation,
we run what we call a training and development
forum twice a year, in which people in companies
come together and talk about our training and
development issues. Recently, we have invited
heads of schools and colleges to those meetings.
We had a meeting about three weeks ago at which
the heads of West Lothian College and Carluke
high school gave up their time to come along. It
was very enlightening for both parties. It is a
forum, so employers are able to ask
headteachers—the leaders of their schools—what
their views are, and I think that the heads get a
19
21 APRIL 2015
better understanding of where employers are
coming from.
It is early days, but we hope that every time we
arrange one of these meetings we can invite along
headteachers and local colleges, on the same
basis, to see how we can work together. We are
all trying to achieve the best thing for our young
people. Schools and colleges are trying to get the
best for their young people and we are trying to
get the best for our industry and to get the best
people into our industry. That needs to work
better. It is a small step but, if we keep working
that way, we will get a better understanding of
each other’s requirements and difficulties.
Employers feel that schools are a no-go area for
us. We have to be invited in and work to a set
school timetable. One headteacher said that that
is not the case. Our employers were not aware of
that. It is about hearing from both sides and
working out that there are ways in which we can
do this.
Phil Ford: We have 15 industry training groups
in Scotland, which are made up of groups of
employers in regions all the way from Dumfries out
to the Western Isles and up to Orkney and
Shetland. Every year, those groups have targets
for schools engagement. A number of the
members of those groups will be actively engaged
with their local schools.
We have apprenticeship week coming up in
May. We are working with SDS and bodies such
as CECA and the SBF, and 40 events are planned
the length and breadth of Scotland, many of which
will involve engagement with schools and young
people. We need to build on such events and
activities to reach our objectives for engagement
between schools and employers.
Colin Beattie: In previous evidence sessions,
we have heard from various bodies that schools
are not necessarily putting together the mix of
skills that employers are looking for. That is why
engagement is so important. Do you find that that
is the case?
Phil Ford: There is probably a bit more work to
be done to link the construction offer into the
curriculum for excellence. That is one of the things
that we will be doing this year—we will be
mapping that. Although there is willingness on the
part of schools to engage with the process, a little
bit more work could be done in that area. We also
need to make schools aware of the opportunities
that are available in construction and the career
pathways that we talked about earlier.
Barry McCulloch: We know very little about
small businesses’ engagement in the education
system. The only statistics available in Scotland
were from a survey that we commissioned a
couple of years ago. That survey found that we
20
can split small businesses 50-50 between those
that engage and those that do not. Among those
that engage, the top three types of experience
tend to be things like work experience, classroom
visits and class talks. More importantly, for those
that do not engage, one of the key issues is that
they had not been contacted. There is a level of
passivity, and the cost-time pressures have not
been considered.
However, encouragingly, we have found that
about 25 per cent of small businesses in Scotland
are willing to get involved. It is about how we
broker that relationship. We are hopeful that the
invest in young people groups—which have come
on stream due to the Wood commission and the
Government’s response to that—will help with
that. The role of those groups is to build that
bridge between the business world and education
in a very practical way, explaining how a small
business can get involved and holding their hand
through the whole process, because the process
is very important for small businesses. It is critical
to get that process right so that it does not take too
much time and so that it is not onerous but is
reflective of their needs. We are very confident
that that will take place.
Colin Beattie: In your opinion, given your
experience, what is the biggest change that
schools could make that would support
businesses?
Barry McCulloch: If I had to pick one change, it
would be positive outreach—it would be a
message to the business community that the
schools are open. The point that Grahame Barn
made is a very good one—whether we like it or
not, a lot of businesses expect that engagement to
come from schools.
If schools were to work with other parts of the
public sector, particularly the enterprise network—
the business gateway, Scottish Enterprise or
Highlands and Islands Enterprise—they could
utilise its expertise to make sure that businesses
get more involved, which could be a game
changer. If we look at the experience in northern
European countries, we find that when there is a
model in which businesses are much more
involved, youth unemployment goes down. In
Switzerland, for example, 88,000 foundation
modern apprenticeships are delivered per year.
Those are quite startling stats, which is why Skills
Development Scotland is so keen to build such a
model, notwithstanding the concerns that Paul
Mitchell raised.
Colin Beattie: Given that particular point, do
you believe that it is primarily the responsibility of
the schools to reach out to the employers? I
realise that there is a judgment involved here, but
do you believe that the schools should be the ones
to reach out?
21
21 APRIL 2015
22
Barry McCulloch: In some cases, yes. There is
increasingly a shared responsibility but, from our
perspective, the role of schools in particular is to
prepare young people for the workplace. There is
a philosophical debate about what the role of
schools is but, fundamentally, that is our opinion.
How schools engage and make sure that those
young people are ready for the workplace is
important. It is as important as the qualifications
that they produce and it is what is most important
for our members. It is less about the abstract
qualifications and more about how young people
apply that learning in the workplace, which is what
makes work experience and work placements so
important.
10:30
Paul Mitchell: Employers often say to us that
some of the barriers to offering work placements
are to do with health and safety: for example,
people cannot operate some machinery until they
are 18, and many employers like people who go to
work on building sites to have a certain level of
health and safety training and perhaps to possess
a safety card. However, I am not sure how real
some of those concerns are—some are merely
perceived barriers. When we try to break the
barriers down, we can overcome them, but there is
certainly a widespread hesitance among
employers in the construction industry to have 15
and 16-year-old kids on building sites.
Grahame Barn: Employers can help schools
and guidance teachers who are guiding young
people by telling them what they are looking for
exactly. Young kids are young kids; 16-year-olds
going for a job interview are not going to have a
huge CV, because they are only 16. They are a bit
immature and a bit shy, and employers realise
that. However, we need to be better at telling
guidance teachers a couple of things that these
kids could do better. For example, they could bring
in a personal statement rather than a CV, setting
out what their interests are and what they get
involved in. That is the type of information that an
employer uses when he is making a decision
about employing somebody.
Phil Ford: The last thing that an employer
wants is for a school pupil to come on site and
have an accident. That is a concern. We need to
work with employers to identify the real barriers. A
pupil might not be able to work on a particular
piece of equipment, but there will be things that
they can do that are not just making tea and coffee
in the office. They can have health and safety
training and they can do bits and pieces when they
are shadowing. They can be accompanied on site
and they can watch what is happening. We need
to outline what is possible. We have some great
examples of employers who have engaged and
worked with us closely to overcome barriers, and it
works well. We need to unpack the issue a little
and to separate the real barriers from the
perceived ones.
It is not all about academic achievement; it is
about what young people do out of school—how
they socially engage, in many cases. Sometimes I
think that schools tell kids that they need to do a
wee formal CV and do not spend enough time
helping them to understand that it is not a formal
job interview; it is a chat with an employer. The
employer realises that if they can get three or four
decent coherent points out of it, that is as much as
they could expect, really, and they make their
decisions on that.
Phil Ford: It is a mixture of both—it is about the
schools reaching out and it is about the employers
reaching out. There are some great examples of
good practice. It is about capturing what works
well. I do not think that there is a lack of
willingness for schools to engage but there might
be a lack of understanding and knowledge about
how best to engage, what opportunities are out
there and how what is being offered by employers
links into the curriculum for excellence. Joining all
that up would be a very positive way forward and
the invest in youth groups are one way of doing
that.
Siobhan McMahon (Central Scotland) (Lab):
We have talked a lot about engagement with
schools, but what are the barriers to employers
engaging with individual pupils?
Siobhan McMahon: The reason why I asked
the question goes back to Mark Griffin’s point
about the attainment gap. A lot of the evidence
that we have heard this morning—useful though it
is—has been about what we can do with the Wood
commission report and responsibilities related to
that, but that does not address the problem of the
attainment gap. When employers go into a school,
the teachers have already selected the pupils
whom they think are the best for that industry,
those who are more apt to have a discussion with
employers, and those who are better at
presentations or whatever. We might be missing
pupils who would adapt well to some situations.
The point that I am trying to make is that
employers have to look for those pupils in schools.
From where I sit, it looks as though pupils being
preselected is already a barrier to employers. How
do we deal with that? We are trying to come up
with evidence for the committee’s report that
suggests that we can do something practical on
that. The Wood commission is all very well and
good, and we are all signed up to the practical
measures that we can take and the opportunities
that we can give pupils, but if we do not get to the
pupils who can take those opportunities, we are
already failing them.
23
21 APRIL 2015
Phil Ford: A lot of that is about getting in at an
early enough point so that employers are not, as
you say, given preselected candidates who are
being shepherded in a particular direction.
However, the issue is complex. As well as the
relationship with the pupils, there are relationships
with careers advisers and teachers. We need to
get in early to offer opportunities in construction—
in S1 to S3, or even at primary school level—
rather than towards the end of a pupil’s career in
school.
There is a great deal of work to be done with
parents, because they probably have the greatest
influence over what young people do or do not do.
From speaking last week to some of our
apprentices in college, I know that dads who left
school at 16 are probably quite encouraging of the
young person doing an apprenticeship. Those who
did not will be less encouraging. We need to work
with parents, through parent forums, and we need
to link into SDS’s My World of Work website—
which has been refreshed for young people—and
to CITB’s careers portal in order to help parents,
careers advisers and teachers to understand what
opportunities are available, so that they do not
push young people down a route that is not
suitable for them. We need intervention at the
earliest possible stage to outline the scale of the
opportunity.
Siobhan McMahon: In the written evidence, no
one has spoken about work that you might be
doing on protected characteristics. For instance,
you have not talked about the problem of not
getting enough females, people from ethnic
minorities or disabled people into the sector. That
has not come up in evidence, but it clearly relates
to the attainment gap. What practical measures
are being taken to address that and how do you
promote those measures? You have not promoted
them in what you have given to us—it is hidden
away, rather than being out in the open.
Phil Ford: One project under the joint
investment strategy is OnSite, which the CITB
submission talks about. That piece of work, which
we are doing with Equate Scotland at Edinburgh
Napier University, is specifically to address gender
issues in the construction industry. It involves
providing work experience opportunities with
additional support for schoolgirls who want to
come into the construction industry. It looks at the
career opportunities that are available, and at the
barriers—real and perceived—that might have to
be overcome. For example, it looks at what
support can be provided with childcare costs,
which is particularly important if people are going
on to a construction site at 7 in the morning.
Equate Scotland has worked hard with us to
identify barriers and has carried out a great deal of
research in those areas. That theme is captured in
24
the new skills investment plan for the construction
industry, which we fed into and which SDS
launched a couple of weeks ago. We have also
had conversations around sexuality with
organisations including Stonewall. Sexuality is a
real issue of which we are aware.
We know that in the craft modern
apprenticeships only about 2 per cent are females,
although the figure is slightly higher—at 30 per
cent—in the professions. We are working hard to
address that, but we have some great examples of
women who have come into the construction
industry and are doing very well for themselves
and running their own businesses, and we have a
number of female construction ambassadors who
go into schools and strongly promote their
experiences of working in the sector. I would not
like the committee to feel that we are not
addressing the issue; we are looking closely at
those areas.
Grahame Barn: I can give a practical example
of what we are trying to do, on the foundation
apprenticeship in civil engineering. The college
has stated that there will be a 50-50 split between
young boys and young girls, and that when the
boys have been recruited—because there will
probably be more boys than girls applying—
recruitment of boys will stop and the college will
actively try to fill the remaining places with girls. I
accept that that is a small step, but it is an
example of how we have realised that we cannot
keep avoiding half of the workforce.
The Convener: I will play devil’s advocate for a
moment. Imagine that you are the parent of a
young boy at school who is applying for the course
that you have described and who is perfectly able,
skilled and keen but would, unfortunately, take the
balance to 51 per cent on the course being boys. If
he is told, “We won’t take you, but we’ll try to fill
the empty spaces with other people and you will
not get one of them,” how would you feel about
that?
Grahame Barn: As a parent, I would not be
best pleased. The pressure would then be on the
college to increase the number of spaces
proportionately, so that it could take on all the
young boys and retain the balance by getting more
girls coming through, too. The foundation
apprenticeship is employer backed, so there are
employers out there who have signed up to give
work experience to young people in the second
year of that apprenticeship. Employers are not just
after boys; they are after young women, too. We
know what we have to do, but to answer your
question: yes—as a parent I would be a bit miffed.
The Convener: I suggest that “a bit miffed”
does not really help us.
25
21 APRIL 2015
Grahame Barn: As an industry, we need to look
at the bigger picture.
The Convener: I am asking the question
because the problem goes right to the core of the
matter—to the need to encourage young girls to
apply for such apprenticeships in the first place. I
am trying to suggest that it is a question of
ensuring that people—young girls, disabled people
or people from ethnic minority backgrounds—
understand that there is a role and a career
opportunity for them in the industry. That is where
the core problem is, and I wonder about the
means by which you say you are tackling that core
problem. Does the mechanism to help that you
described actually deal with the core problem and
get more young girls to apply?
Grahame Barn: We are having to play a long
game, but I go back to what I said earlier about
our work in primary schools. We are trying to
inspire everyone and give them a feeling that there
is a career for them in the industry, if they want it.
It comes down to choice, in the end. The industry
is not saying, “We only want boys.” However,
there is a history of construction being a male
industry and we have to break that down, so we
have to work in primary schools and with S1 and
S2 pupils to ensure that when the kids come to
make
their
selections
for
foundation
apprenticeships, everybody wants to do it.
The Convener: I agree with that. That is the
point that I was trying to make.
James Dornan (Glasgow Cathcart) (SNP): I
congratulate Grahame Barn on his attempts to
break down the barriers, which must be difficult. I
want to ask a couple of questions about
apprenticeships. What are the main reasons or
motivations of employers for taking on
apprentices—in particular, young people between
the ages of 16 and 19? Conversely, why might
they decide not to take them on?
Phil Ford: The main reason why our employer
members would take on apprentices is that they
see the benefit in doing so. Many have been
apprentices themselves; they have been right
through the system and can see how it has helped
them in their career. It is very much down to
personal experience. Such employers can see the
benefit that an apprentice can bring to the
organisation.
Employers have an apprentice working for them
for four years, which gives them time to shape
them in the way that they want, in accordance with
the company’s values and culture. Usually, the
apprentices will stay with that employer, so their
retention is not so much of an issue once they
have gone through the full training. Where
possible, the employer will keep that young person
on. They can see their career progression through
26
the company, perhaps into management positions;
they see the individual’s journey right the way
through.
There were barriers during the recession,
including lack of available work, which Grahame
Barn touched on earlier. How is it possible to
make a commitment to someone for four years if
the order book has only three to six months of
work? That has been a real problem—a number of
apprentices were made redundant and we had to
work quite hard to ensure that they were rehomed.
Thankfully, it is less of an issue now—that
particular barrier is much less considerable than it
was two or three years ago.
Overall, the employers see the advantages, as
opposed to the disadvantages, of apprenticeships.
They get a lot of support from bodies such as the
Scottish Building Apprenticeship & Training
Council and the Scottish Painting and Decorating
Apprenticeship Council, and the wage rates are
set. They get a lot of support from CITB, and there
is a strong and structured training programme
there. From an employer’s point of view, there is
less of a risk from apprenticeships, because there
is a clear support mechanism for the young
person, including welfare, all the way through their
apprenticeship.
Paul Mitchell: I will start with some of the
positives. We have already touched on the culture
in the construction industry to continue to recruit
and employ apprentices, who energise and
invigorate employers.
Employers are also concerned with succession
planning; we mentioned earlier that 30 per cent of
the workforce are aged 50 or over. Employers
recognise that if they do not address that problem
by recruiting apprentices, they cannot expect other
people to do it for them.
Cost is a major factor in why employers might
be a little hesitant to take on apprentices. The
aggregate wage cost of taking on a construction
apprentice across the four years of the programme
is just north of £50,000. That is a significant
investment, especially for small employers. There
is also the off-the-job training element; the
average construction apprenticeship involves
losing the candidate for about 32 weeks as they
go to college, so the firm needs to be able to plug
the gap with other resources while the apprentice
is on off-the-job training.
Furthermore, employers must be confident that
they have a substantial pipeline of work for the
duration of the four years of the apprenticeship,
which can sustain the apprenticeship itself.
Barry McCulloch: For the small firms that
engage in the programme, apprenticeships are a
cost-effective route for tackling skills deficiencies.
Paul Mitchell has aptly summarised all the main
27
21 APRIL 2015
benefits. For those that do not have apprentices,
the time-cost pressures are particularly onerous.
We can look forward to some of the innovations
in the apprenticeship programme and to
embarking on shared apprenticeships or mixed
apprenticeships, so that firms can create bespoke
apprenticeships—although I am sure that we have
differing opinions on that.
How can we enable firms that do not have
appropriate capacity to do so to take on an
apprentice for four years? The apprenticeship
could be shared, especially in tourism for example,
in which seasonality matters. There might not be
enough work coming in to cover the workload, so
how would a tourism employer work with another
company in the central belt, say—such as a large
hotelier—that has capacity to share that skill set
and employees across the board?
Grahame Barn: To follow on from what Phil
Ford was saying, I hope that we have made to the
committee the point that the Scottish construction
industry
has
a
history
of
supporting
apprenticeships. I do not see that changing in any
way, but we must try to increase the numbers of
people whom we take on and the breadth of
apprentices that we employ.
We see a substantial workload ahead of us,
which is encouraging. I am encouraged by the
strength of the Scottish construction industry and
can see us taking on many more apprentices in
the coming years.
10:45
James Dornan: I am delighted to hear that.
You talked about small and micro businesses. I
was going to ask how employers might best
access the opportunities to take on apprentices,
particularly with regard to young people leaving
school, but I think that Barry McCulloch said that
many of those companies do not see any value in
apprenticeships. How do we address that?
Barry McCulloch: I would probably say that it is
a case not of value but of fit. Around 66 per cent of
our membership do not see the relevance of the
model for their business. There is a belief that
apprenticeships are for hard-hat industries only; I
think that that is a very strong view in the business
community. Businesses in the service sector, such
as retailers or those in hospitality, do not see the
model as the best fit. We see the foundation
apprenticeship model as being one way in which
we can better promote apprenticeships and
introduce clear pathways through schools,
colleges and into the workplace. It allows
employers to engage early with schools in a
tangible and focused way, in the hope that that will
have the employment benefits.
28
The other part of the issue concerns what more
can be done to offset some of the costs. If a micro
business with five employees loses one of them to
a college for 30 weeks, how can it fill that gap?
That is a practical issue for our members, on
which they seek support from Skills Development
Scotland and others. The logistical elements are
problematic. How do those companies address the
payroll issues? Do they get contractors? How do
they fill those gaps?
James Dornan: How do the companies that
want to take on apprentices—particularly those
who are just leaving school—access opportunities
to do so?
Barry McCulloch: They do that primarily
through training providers who contract out from
Skills Development Scotland. We do less well with
regard to those who are thinking about taking on
apprentices but are not quite there yet. However,
those who benefit from their apprenticeship
programme are evangelists about it. There is no
question about that. Others will go down a
different route and will get involved in something
more informal and more work based.
James Dornan: Will the companies that benefit
from the apprenticeship programme evangelise to
other members of the Federation of Small
Businesses?
Barry McCulloch: Absolutely. Some of the
most powerful change can come about through
promotion and peer-to-peer support. That will
achieve much more than can be achieved by any
public sector organisation, because our members
tend to recruit via word of mouth. If you can get
apprenticeships working on that model, you will
see an uplift in employment.
James Dornan: Does anyone else have a
comment on that?
Phil Ford: With regard to engagement from
small businesses, there is a lot of strong support
within the construction industry. The situation is
slightly different.
In terms of how we recruit, young people will
apply for a construction apprenticeship through the
bconstructive site. We have a team of 150 staff in
Scotland, most of whom work from home in places
from Dumfries up to Orkney. They work hard with
employers in their area who have taken on
apprentices or expressed an interest in doing so,
and companies that they feel should be
considering doing so. They will chap on doors,
send out information and encourage employers to
give young people an opportunity.
There are two main recruitment periods. The
main one is around August and September, and
there is another intake in January, linking in with
the college timetable.
29
21 APRIL 2015
We really do not have an issue with employers
not engaging with apprenticeships. We have a
strong culture in Scotland of employers who wish
to engage.
James Dornan: The commission for developing
Scotland’s young workforce recommended that
there should be more focus on level 3
apprenticeships.
However,
Audit
Scotland
suggested that many employers are not seeking
level 3 apprenticeships. Do you have any
comments on that or solutions to the problem?
Paul Mitchell: The majority of apprenticeships
that are offered in the construction industry at the
moment are at SVQ level 3. What are often
referred to as the biblical trades—brick laying,
joinery, painting and decorating and so on—are all
offered at SVQ level 3. Around 1,100 of the 1,500
apprentices that we registered last year were at
SVQ level 3.
In contrast to SVQ level 3 apprenticeships, SVQ
level 2 apprenticeships typically last two years
rather than four, have a much shorter period of offthe-job training and do not usually end with what is
known in the industry as a skills test. SVQ level 2
occupations include scaffolding, AMES taping,
general building operations, being a steeplejack
and a vast array of other construction specialisms.
At the moment, the SBATC and the construction
community are fiercely protecting the qualifications
offered at SVQ level 3. There has not been much
of a campaign to dilute them, and I very much
hope that they will stay at that level. In fact, I
would like some of the SVQ level 2 occupations to
be uplifted to SVQ level 3 apprenticeships.
Phil Ford: It is just a question of balancing what
the industry requires. In the main, level 3
qualifications are the norm but, as Paul Mitchell
has suggested, they are not appropriate in
particular parts of the sector. In such cases, level
2 modern apprenticeships are used. Because all
the construction apprenticeship frameworks are
developed in full consultation with the industry,
they reflect what the industry has asked for and
requires.
Barry McCulloch: What the Audit Scotland
report did very well was to tease out the tension
between quantity and quality and the feasibility of
ensuring quality where targets are in place.
According to Skills Development Scotland, for
example, a lot of demand is for level 3
qualifications and below. The question is how we
have both and how the contributions can be
changed so that, at a national level, we encourage
those with level 3 and above, and get uptake in
key sectors. Indeed, that is the process that SDS
is going through at the moment.
James Dornan: My final question touches on
an issue that we have already discussed. What is
30
the role of the apprenticeship programme in
addressing the attainment gap?
Phil Ford: It is all about promoting to young
people in schools a career in construction and the
apprenticeship offer and making them aware of
what is available. Sometimes the least able
candidates are pushed into—or, I should say, are
pre-selected for—a career in construction, but we
want to offer the range of construction careers and
apprenticeship opportunities to as wide a selection
of young people as possible to ensure that they
are able to make educated decisions about the
career that is right for them.
James Dornan: I return to a point that Siobhan
McMahon made. Have you done any specific work
to find out whether you should target schools that
do not have a great academic attainment record
and give some of the kids in those schools a better
chance of a good lifestyle by making them realise
the importance of going into, say, construction?
Phil Ford: We look at skills requirements and
shortages on an area-by-area basis and then
promote the career opportunities in those areas
that will lead to sustainable employment. That is at
the core of everything that we do. Construction is
slightly unique, in that apprentices have to be
employed for the full duration of the apprenticeship
programme; in other words, they are paid from day
1
and
are
employed
throughout
their
apprenticeship, which gives them a fantastic
opportunity. We talk to young people from
disadvantaged backgrounds about the available
opportunities, but we do the same for all
schoolchildren. Our focus is on promoting the jobs
and opportunities in a particular area, based on
the work that we know is coming through the
pipeline over the next four or five years.
James Dornan: Does anyone else wish to
comment?
Grahame Barn: The only other point that I
would add is that because of its focus on health
and safety, the industry has regulated
competence. When someone who might have had
low achievement at school is taken on, the
company helps them to develop the skills and
competence—and, in some cases, to undertake
the lifelong learning—that they need to operate
safely in the industry. A young person’s learning
does not finish when they leave school; the
employers carry on with it, because that is what
the industry demands through all its different card
and competence schemes.
George Adam: I go back to Phil Ford’s point
about looking at the work that is available in
certain areas and trying to recruit on that basis.
How do we address the situation in which many of
the young people that you might need to recruit to
31
21 APRIL 2015
deal with the amount of construction that is going
on in Aberdeen are likely to be in the central belt?
Phil Ford: A lot of young people in school in
Aberdeen will go into the oil and gas sector, which
is very strong.
We need to explode some of the myths. We
have talked about pay, and construction pays well.
It is competitive compared to other industries. I
highlight the scale of the opportunities. We are not
saying, “Well, they’re all just going to go into oil
and gas, so we may as well just try to recruit from
other parts of the country.” We will promote the
construction career opportunities in Aberdeen first
and foremost, to encourage people in. We
encourage clients who are procuring work to
advertise through local employment vehicles and
to engage with the DWP, schools and young
people in the area in relation to the projects that
are happening there.
People may have to come from other areas, but
we would start in the area concerned—particularly
when we are in Aberdeen—to encourage enough
young people into the available opportunities.
George Adam: I ask only because I spoke to a
construction company that is involved in some of
the contracts in the Aberdeen area, and it has a
demographic issue. It is trying to get young
recruits, but young people in Aberdeen either go
down an academic route or go into oil and gas.
Again, the issue is to do with parents and with
everybody’s perceptions. That company’s big
issue was that it did not have the flexibility to
recruit young people from the central belt to meet
that need.
Phil Ford: It is a question of balance. Through
the youth employment strategy, which we have
talked about, there is an opportunity to have
engagement
between
schools,
colleges,
employers and clients, to try and bring everything
together a bit more coherently than perhaps has
been the case. I recognise that there is a real
challenge in the Aberdeen area, but we are keen
to do what we can to help.
The Convener: In recent years, there has been
a trend for young people to stay on at school
longer than they did in the past. When I was at
school, quite a lot of people left at the end of fourth
year—that was a perfectly normal thing to do—
most people left at the end of fifth year and very
few stayed on until the end of sixth year. That is
no longer the case; the pattern of leaving school is
very different. Has that change in recent years
impacted on the construction industry’s ability to
recruit young people in the 16 to 18 age range?
Paul Mitchell: In recent years, I have seen a
change in the profile of the age at which a
candidate starts an apprenticeship. You are right
to identify that the entry age has increased. Far
32
more apprentices are starting at 18, 19 or 20 years
of age, having experienced some form of senior
school.
In the construction industry we try to promote
the fact that apprenticeships are not just for young
people.
The
majority
of
construction
apprenticeships that are offered—almost nine out
of 10—are for school leavers, be they 16, 17 or
18, but we also have an experienced
apprenticeship route, which is available to
anybody aged over 22 years. The apprenticeship
is reduced from four years to two, but it is the
same college course and qualification. The door
remains open for candidates to start an
apprenticeship, regardless of age.
The Convener: Has the change in school
leaving ages impacted on anybody else?
Traditionally, people went into many of the
construction industries at 16 and learned on the
job. Modern apprenticeships are the modern
version of that, to a great extent. Has the change
in age profile caused any difficulties?
Grahame Barn: The change in age profile
might also have something to do with the
recession that we have come through. There may
not have been the jobs for those young people at
the age of 16. Young people had the option of
leaving school and not having a job or not leaving
school and trying to get more qualifications. That
was probably the advice that they were given at
the time; those that could stay on would have
done so.
Employers are realising that we need to show
young people that there is a career for them from
a young age, that it is a lifelong career in which
they can go as far as they want, and that they can
go in different directions. That is where we are as
employers. We need to make that change and try
to repair whatever damage was done by the
recession.
The Convener: Thank you very much.
I thank all our witnesses for taking the time to
speak to us this morning; it has been a very
welcome and interesting session. The more that
we go into the subject, the more complex it
becomes—that is unsurprising, maybe. We will
carry on next week, when we will have another
session on attainment.
The committee has agreed to hold the next
agenda item in private, so I close the meeting to
the public.
10:59
Meeting continued in private until 11:58.
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